How to Read a College Transcript

Reading a college transcript is fairly simple. It is just a record of courses a student has taken, her grades earned in the courses and her cumulative grade point average. An official transcript will come in an envelope with a signature or stamp over the seal to show it hasn't been tampered with. Any other transcript is considered unofficial and is not admissible to most fellowship programs or graduate schools. If you want to open your transcript to look at it, you should order more than one.

Instructions

Instructions

1. Check the name, student ID number, degree concentration and graduation date (if applicable) at the top of the transcript to make sure they are correct.

2. Read through your coursework. It should be listed by semester, including any interims, such as a winter term. The name, course number and department code (example: COM for communication) for all of your classes will appear on the left, except for classes that you dropped during the approved add/drop period at the beginning of the semester. (Any you quit after that will appear with a grade of W for "withdrew.")

3. Note that after the course name will be two decimals: one for units attempted and one for units earned. If you passed the class, these numbers will match. If not, units earned will say 0.0. If you retook a class and then passed, only your repeated grade should appear.

4. Look at your GPA, which appears under each semester's course list. You will notice there is a semester GPA and a cumulative GPA. The semester GPA is just for that term. The cumulative GPA is for the entire time you were enrolled up to that point. Some transcripts also show a third GPA, which is calculated using the courses in your major only.

5. Check for a key at the bottom of the transcript. It should explain any letters or symbols you don't understand at first glance. For example, some schools use different letters for honors credits or pass/fail courses.

Tips & Warnings

• Contact your college's registrar's office immediately if you find any mistakes in your transcript. A representative should be able to track the errors by going through old records. Every college has a slightly different format for its transcripts. Since there is no set standard, yours may not appear to be exactly as described.

• Don't try to alter your transcript if there's a grade you don't like. It's better to just explain what happened than to be caught trying to cheat the system.